


Hits between the eyes

by thatdragonchic



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack centric fic, M/M, Oops, Sad, jack comes back fic, mac and jack reuinite, this is uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-20 21:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17629604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdragonchic/pseuds/thatdragonchic
Summary: Jack finally comes home, and Mac isn't there when he comes back.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy, please feel free to leave a comment! It's late and I'm tired, so i'm sorry if my tags are atrocious haha

“So you called me here to…”

“To… say goodbye to a friend.”

He watched his friends whole world crash, and his heart break, and the world spin around him. Like all the trust between them was suddenly broken, and he could see all the questions he thought but didn’t say. That’s what killed Jack the most, the way Mac looked at him as if asking how  _ could  _ he? 

“Oh…” 

“It’s deep cover.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“So will you, Mac… you’re the strongest kid I know.”

“Yeah well… had no choice, right?”

“I guess so… I’d take you with me if I could.”

Mac nods. “How long is it going to take?”

“Indefinite… but more than a year it seems.” They both a take a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears. He seems so much younger, in that way people do when they’ve been thrown through the ringer. Jack could see the kid he used to be right through the lines of worry, and he can see how Mac’s eyes cloud with that unreadable look he gets when he’s upset. Jack hates it, he wants to end the op, and stay there with Mac. But Mac didn’t need him anymore. Mac didn’t need much of anybody anymore. Where did his kid go? Maybe he’ll find himself again, if Jack were to step back and leave for a bit. 

“I’m gonna miss you,” Mac finally admits. Jack softens and opens his arms, Mac stepping forward and crushing Jack in his arms, hiding his face in his neck. 

He doesn’t see Mac crumple against the door of his house and sob for hours later, and how he leaves the Phoenix for a month about three months later because he can’t handle it all on his own. Jack almost wants to go and give the job back, but they felt so distantly, he doesn’t think that Mac cries, and he doesn’t know that Mac leaves for a while. 

He steps into his new life, and he knows at heart that Mac will still be there when he returns. 

-3 years later - 

Mac isn’t there when he comes back. In fact, there’s a guy who’s replaced Mac, someone who was nothing like Mac, and Bozer is running the lab full time, Leanna and Riley have stepped up as the head agents, and Matty looks so hurt when she realizes that Jack doesn’t know Mac has left.

“Our boy left just a little over 2 years ago… he made the right decision for himself,” She says. Jack wants to tell her that there was no way he could have left. No way that he left. 

“I could just drop by his house,” Jack finds himself saying, his voice cracking and Matty’s eyes bore into him sympathetically. “What? What am I missing?” 

“Mac… moved to oregon, with his husband.” 

“He- what?”

“About six months after you left, Mac sat us down and told us that he had planned to come out as bisexual a long time ago, and that he wanted you to be there when he told us, but it’d been too hectic, and he wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it. He was dating this guy for two years, Jack…”

“Two years…”

“Before you left… they got married almost year after. It was a nice wedding,” She says softly. “He wanted you to be there.”

“But I wasn’t…” Jack whispers. 

“He wanted to wait actually… but we didn’t know when you were coming back, so I made him go through with it.”

“Good, he shouldn’t have waited…” Jack agrees, looking down, trying to take this all in. “So he’s really married?”

“Yeah…” She says. “I could give you the company plane to go see him,” she says. “You are an official phoenix agent, after all.” 

Jack nods, thinking for a moment. “I… I think I need to go home for a bit.”

“Okay.”

They sit there in static silence for a moment, Matty rubbing the top of his hand, Jack sniffling. “Jack… it’s okay,” she whispers, and hesitantly she raises her hand to his face, and he kneels down in front of her hugging her, crying in her shoulder. 

 

-A Small Town in Oregon-

 

It was a sickeningly perfect town. Everything about it was put together, and beautiful and perfect. Everything about it was simple, and gorgeous. The car couldn’t move fast enough, it couldn’t move slow enough. What does Mac do now? What was his life like? The town was so small… everything was so closed in, he passes the flower store and the fancy grocers with the perfectly stacked produce outside. A big sign says  _ FRESH DAILY IMPORTS!  _ Mac probably was over the moon at that.

There’s a few coffee shops, a pizza place that looked better than any pizza place in California, a burger joint, he passes two schools. The drive through the town leads to a maze of more houses, big houses, with nice lawns, and big gardens, kids in the streets. 

It hits Jack right in the heart that Mac could have adopted a kid with his husband. Maybe kids. He wonders what the man is like, what their kid would look like. Would they have adopted a boy or a girl? Jack wants to turn the car around- how could he face that? See Mac with a kid? Mac was still a kid, he was hardly 28, and to see him holding a little girl or boy…

Jack slows at a stop sign, pausing, and the GPS system tells him to turn at the next stop sign, just a hundred feet away now. 

The spring trees provide a melodic shade, and the green was the perfect green, and driving under their shade was gentle, and the breeze was sweet, nothing like the smoggy city air. He could see Mac driving his jeep, laughing as he listens to his favorite songs with Jack in the passenger side, yelling at him not to speed, or to turn that rough.  _ Like when you brought him home to texas, remember that Jacky?  _

Jack stops again, turning onto the street, and he can just hear Mac’s voice, yelling to the words of  _ Those Days are Gone and My Heart is Blue _ , blonde hair flying back from the breeze through the windows, his sunglasses on. He used to love spring. (Does he still love spring? Did he get married in the spring? Did his husband prefer the fall?)

_ You’ve arrived at your destination.  _

Jack pulls to the curb, a few feet after the house, and he parks, taking a deep breath, he sits back in the car, and looks out the window. He wipes his eyes, and tries to breathe. 

_ Breathe, Dalton… Breathe. He’s still the same kid you knew three years ago.  _

He gets out of the car, and he takes a good look at the house he’s sure is Macs. It’s big, and dutch styled ,with a towerlike roof on the far right side on the house. It was a big house, and the lawn was flush with flowers and bushes and color, hardly spaces of groomed grass. It was as wild as that kids mind, like all the youth had rushed back to his body, and taken him back into its hold. He was young again, and innocent again. Maybe he was happier now, maybe he didn’t dream that he was falling anymore, grasp at the sheets crying anymore. Maybe Mac doesn’t have guns pointed at him all the time anymore.

The pathway to the house feels like it’s miles long, even if it’s only a few feet, and he notes the nice jeep in the driveway, a murky green, Mac’s favorite color. The closer he gets the further he feels from Mac, this wasn’t  _ real _ . It couldn’t be. 

There was a pink easel on the porch, and a painting on it, only made by the hands of a child. Blankets that looked hand sewn. His heart clenches. 

The stairs creak under his step, and the porch rails were coated in fresh paint. They haven’t lived here long. When did he move here? Where did he live before? Did they move a lot? He can hear movement in the house, but no speaking, and he wonders if a child will come running to the door. Jack thinks that if a child does run to the door, Jack will buckle and cry. He should’ve been there. He should’ve  _ been there. You should’ve been there, and you left him alone. What if he doesn’t want to see you? What if he hates you?  _

He stands in front of the door, biting down hard on his lip. He wipes his eyes again, and he can’t cry in front of Mac. He takes a deep breath, tries to remain calm, and finally he rings the doorbell. 

There’s the clambering of a dog, whining as Mac wills the dog to  _ just calm down girl. Who’s at the door?  _ As if the dog could answer him, and soon he’s answering the door, clad in sweatpants and a new tshirt, a tshirt Jack had never seen before.

His lips turn down, eyes wide, holding back the dog. 

There’s a long silence, he can hear the song  _ Romance  _ playing in the background, the same song Mac used to listen to after Nikki had left with Thorton, how heartbroken he was and so unwilling to admit it. (And he hates the man he married, if he makes Mac feel enough pain that he plays this song on repeat.) 

“Jack?” 

“It’s me buddy..”

“What are you doing here?”

“I… finished my op and, funny story, went back to the phoenix and you weren’t there.”

Mac nods, letting the dog go, and the giant eskimo dog sniffed around Jack before trotting back inside pompously. “Did you want to come inside?” Mac asks.

“Oh if you’re busy-”

“No! No… I’m not, I was just making coffee.”

Jack takes a deep breath and nods. “Sure… I’ll come inside.” 

He steps in and Mac closes the door. There were toys strewn about the floor, and Mac goes to pick them up. “I wasn’t really expecting anyone sorry… uhm… I- Uhm… Well I should probably tell you everything first.”

“You have a kid,” Jack fills in and Mac nods slowly.

“Elizabeth… Ellie for short,” he says, smiling. “You’d like her, she’s uh… creative for a three year old.”

“She’s three?”

“We adopted her at two. She’s lived with us for a year.”

Jack nods, noting the nice wedding ring on his finger. “That’s nice… was it a hard transition for her?”

“At first, but once she was fully settled in here… well everything fell into place perfectly. Here, the kitchen is this way. Did you still like your coffee the same way?”

“Yeah, it hasn’t changed,” Jack says. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Your… kid.”

“Oh, she’s down for a nap, which is rare, honestly,” he admits, running a hand through his hair. He pours Jack hardly a quarter of a cup and pulls out a french vanilla creamer, it seemed very fancy. Jack can’t help the small smile he gets as Mac fills the cup, and adds 3 teaspoons of sugar. He makes himself a cup and sits on the stool across from Jack. 

“I’m bisexual,” he says.

“And that’s okay,” Jack says, his eyes are soft. “So you must be married.”

“I am… his name is Jasper, he’s… the most amazing person in the world, you’d really like him actually. He and I uhm… well we made more than our wealth a few years ago, when he modified an over the counter drug. We get a big check about it every month, so… but I’m in school for a PhD, and he works as an independent think tanker… currently is teaching in a university actually… He has three classes today.”

Jack nods. “And I’m guessing he teaches something nerdy?”

Mac laughs, nodding, holding his cup tightly. “Chemistry… he loves Chemistry. Once he woke up in the middle of the night to tell me how he had- well, anyways, it’s not really important.”

Jack’s smile goes quickly, nodding, he could see Mac thought maybe he didn’t care. Mac looks down, sipping his coffee and looks up as their dog walks across to rest by his legs, at the end of the stool. 

“This is our dog, her name is Cadmium.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“Uhm… after the metal on the periodic table? We thought it was clever at the time.”

Jack smiles. “It is clever,” he tries to assure and Mac smiles, his lips pressed together. His sips his coffee. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For leaving.”

“You don’t have to be-”

“I do. I pushed you away-”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t?” 

“No… I… I was awful, and you were just trying to help me, and I just… I never thought you’d leave-”

“You weren’t awful, and I didn’t leave because I thought that-”

“You did.”

“How do you know?”

“Why else would you leave?”

“My country needed me.”

“It could’ve taken someone else instead.  _ I  _ needed you, and maybe that’s selfish, but you’re- you’re a lot like a dad to me… So, you leaving felt like losing him all over again.” 

Jack’s heart falls right out of his chest.  _ Shit.  _ He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t know what to say. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have- that was out of place, I just…”

“Mac…”

“No I- I’m gonna go the bathroom-” 

Jack stands up and takes his arm before he can leave, pulling an unsuspecting Mac to his chest and Mac folds in easily, his head burrowing into Jack’s shoulder, as Jack pulls him into a once familiar, all encompassing hug. Mac hugs him tighter, crumpling against Jack, his shirt growing wet. His brow furrows before he realizes that Mac is crying, and he gently squeezes Mac’s body, rubbing his sides gingerly. He presses a hesitant and soft kiss to the side of his head.

He doesn’t know how much Mac broke thinking he’d lost Jack, and he doesn’t know that Mac is so relieved to be held by Jack, to see Jack, to feel him, to know he’s not dead, or captured, or stuck somewhere dangerous and bad. He rubs his back, not knowing that Mac spent days in his apartment, under his bed covers, holding his pillow after their first op without him. He was heartbroken, ruined, and Jack didn’t know, he didn’t know how much Mac had missed him. 

Finally Mac pulls away and Jack watches him wipe his tears, Jack having to wipe tears of his own. 

“You’re always gonna be my kid, you know that,” Jack says softly. “I wasn’t leaving forever.”

“If you died, you would have.”

“I’m too stubborn to die.”

Mac laughs, coughing a bit. His arms cross over his chest, and he shrugs. “I was… so scared… and it just… I kept thinking you’d never come back.”

“I did come back… that’s in the past, I’m right here,” he whispers. “I am right here and I won’t leave until you ask me too. Besides, I still gotta give the beat down on that husband of yours.”

Mac laughs, hugging Jack again, tightly. Mac pulls away and punches his arm lightly. “He’s a great guy. You’re going to like him.”

“No promises.” 

“You will, he’s nice-”

“Is that all you’ve got for him?”

“He makes a great peach pie.”

“Hmm…”

“He should be between classes soon, he’ll call any minute and I can tell him to grab peaches from the store.”

“It’s that easy huh?”

“Having a husband is very handy, I recommend it,” Mac says, sniffling. He wipes his eyes, looking up when he hears the stairs creak. “Ellie?” 

Jack watches him disappear back into the living room, and into the hallway where the stairs were, the echoes of the house carrying the sound of Mac very gently cooing to the little girl. She was much smaller than initially expected, with long brown hair that tumbled into her eyes and a brightly colored onsie. Her head was burrowed into Mac’s neck. 

“Daddy has a friend over, did you want to say hi?” he says softly, Jack smiling. “He’s someone who daddy was very close with, I’d really appreciate it if you looked up.”

“Tired,” Jack hears her mumble.

“Still? We have to sleep tonight too, you know.”

“Why?”

“So we can have a loooot of energy for tomorrow. Maybe Uncle Jack can you take you the park tomorrow.”

“Who’s that?”

“My friend, won’t you wake up to meet him?”

Jack watches her consider it, and she finally looks up to reveal her beautiful deep brown eyes, and she pouted in a way that reminded him a lot of mac himself. 

“Hi there, little buddy,” he greets softly, and she seems shy. The phone rings and she lights up. 

“Is that papa?”

“Probably,” Mac says, watching her worm her way down and run to the phone, answering very enthusiastically in french. 

“Bonjour papa!”

“Your kid speaks french?”

“I married a fluent french man who is very passionate about her learning french, and well… I know french, and she knows french, and he is very happy that our family is closer this way,” Mac says, shaking his head a bit but he has a fond smile. Jack smiles too, Mac was so much happier, and he seemed healthier, and he had… everything. The perfect life, the perfect family. He thinks that maybe Mac didn’t need him anymore, genuinely. That perhaps he had no place in this family… maybe he really wouldn’t like his husband, and well, he lost the chance for his approval to mean anything. Mac  _ would  _ choose this man over anything, he married him, he wore his ring even when he was just sitting on his couch at home. 

Mac moves back to the counter, by the stool, picks up his mug to sip and makes sure Ellie doesn’t fall off the stool. “Papa veut te parler,” she clumsily attempts to hand Mac the phone and Mac takes it, Jack watching Mac smile with relief at the voice on the other end, he understands broken sentences, and assigns meaning to few things. Mac is gingerly running his hands through the girls hair, and she watches Jack with vague interest. 

“-Well, I’d really appreciate if you did pass by the store to get the peaches even if they are out of season love, we have a guest and he quite likes peach pie…” Mac looks to Jack, but almost as if looking right through him, or making sure he was still there, maybe to check if he was listening. “Well, they might be staying a while actually? No don’t come home early it’s okay- really it’s okay. Just bring home the peaches- you just have your lecture at four, so it’s really no big deal- yes I promise I won’t feed him anything that isn’t easily microwavable. Sure, and don’t forget to take your- no i know, but you  _ forget  _ and I really don’t want to take another trip to the doctors office to hear what I already know. Yes I love you too, very much.”

And then he hangs up, the conversation wavering in his ears.  _ I love you too, very much.  _ Was there resentment? What were they talking about? Why does Mac seem so shifty, so tense? 

“He’s had this awful sinus infection,” Mac informs. “But he’s stubborn,” he continues, while picking up his mug and sips again. “He just won’t take the damn pills and last week we ended up at the doctors again and he just gave him  _ more  _ pills, which he’s set are the devil or something. But I’ve been forcing him to take them because it’s really getting ridiculous.”

“Jack?” Ellie asks.

“Yes, that’s Jack,” Mac informs her, and Jack smiles, she nods. He feels his heart break, he wished he’d been there to see Mac go through adopting her, and having to hold her for the first time, and meeting her. He’d always been so good with kids… He’d always wanted this.  
“She’s precious,” Jack says, and he hates that they can’t talk like they used to. Mac smiles, his daughter waddling out of the room on unsteady toddler legs with Cadmium. 

“Thank you. Finish your coffee. Did you want to use the shower- or you must have bags?”

“I’ll get a hotel,” Jack says, and Mac waves him off. 

“We have a room to spare, it’s all ready with a bed and everything. You should go get your bags, and rest…”

Jack turns to Mac, and he wants to say something, say something more but their eyes meet and he almost doesn’t recognize him, the Angus Macgyver in front of him wasn’t the boy he had met, the boy he remembered. He was a much fuller version, a much bigger man. 

“I… I’m gonna get my bags.”

“Do you want me to help?” 

“No, I’ve got it. You go check on the girl…”

\--

Jack falls asleep on the guest mattress, just briefly enough that when he wakes up, he can hear the house door opening, and he can hear Ellie running from the back of the house, barrelling herself forward yelling  _ papa! _

He sinks into the bed, feeling like an outsider. He couldn’t hear the man’s voice until he climbed upstairs, and he realizes he’s talking to Mac. His voice was raspy, soft. 

_ How are you handling it? _

_ I don’t know… it hasn’t processed that he’s really here yet. _

_ It’s okay you know _

_ I don’t know. It doesn’t feel okay, And I keep thinking maybe I ruined everything… I don’t know what to say- _

_ It’s okay, Jones… You’ll work it out, not everything is instant. _

_ But it should be instant. We should be instant, he’s my best friend… he… he w a s my best friend. _

_ He still is. _

_ Is he? _

_ Of course he is. _

_ You’re right of course he is.  _

It’s oddly quiet for a minute, and Jack doesn’t really want to imagine why. He doesn’t know what to expect upon seeing him. He doesn’t know who to expect. He wants to get up, he wants to tell the guy to get away from Mac- and he really does sound kind of nice, doesn’t he? But Jack doesn’t want to believe it. That was his boy. That was his  _ boy  _ and who was this guy anyways? Why did he get to keep Mac, and move him to Oregon and have the nice job? He doesn’t deserve Mac. Nobody deserved Mac. Nobody should get to have him, to take him. 

\--

Walking downstairs is agony, because the house smells so welcoming and nice, the warm scent of something cooking in the kitchen, and Jack couldn’t quite place the scent but it was pleasant, and heartwarming. It was the kind of smell that Mac had once talked about when they stayed at an inn during an op, and how it reminded him very briefly of his mom. 

He could hear Ellie playing in the hall somewhere, maybe she had a playroom, and he could hear Mac talking, vividly, about something endlessly, the way he did when he was passionate. When he couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice, and that was his boy, saying all the words he didn’t understand. All the things he didn’t get, and could never understand.

For a minute it’s so easy to feel like he’s in LA and Mac is in the kitchen, talking to Bozer and he’s just walking in from his own place, and it’s early afternoon, and the sun is still shining. Mac sees him and he starts over all again, and he laughs, and offers him a drink. For a minute he sees himself walking through to the kitchen, where his boy was, in the early evening, attempting to make the simplest of meals, and Jack watching over him like he really was a child. (if only he just focused enough… and when he did he did so well.)

But he walks into the kitchen, dimly lit by the hanging lamps over the counter, and there’s a handsome, dark haired man with shocking brown eyes, brow eyes that looked almost hazel in the light, like honey dripping, and he smiled so sweet, so dazzling at Jack, Macs voice dying down. 

“You never change, you still nap like a professional,” Mac says, smiling at his own joke. Jack smiles too, but his heart is cracking beneath the surface. 

“Some things aren’t meant to change, man,” he defends, light hearted and joking, but they weren’t meant to change. But they’d changed. Everything’s changed. 

“Well, you must be our guest, Jack Dalton,” he says in a sweet southern accent. (Jack wants to say Carolina, but it was faded, and tender, the way Jacks own accent had long become.) “I’m Jasper Sheriff, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mac’s told me so much about you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine,” Jack says, taking the man’s hand to shake. Jasper had a firm shake, an inquisitive stare. He was all interest and no bite, Jack wonders if Jasper hates him, if maybe he thinks that Jack himself would end up hurting Mac. Would he protect Mac? 

Mac didn’t need him anymore. Jack was certain of it. 

He had someone else to protect him from the world, someone else to hold him through the worst of things. He saw it when Jasper looked to Mac reassuringly, nudging their elbows together, kissing just under his ear, so quick Jack isn’t sure it happened. 

Was Jasper Sheriff a bad guy? Was Mac unhappy? 

So much of him wants him to believe the answer is, but every logical part of him says the answer is no. He looked so much happier now. 

“You must be jet lagged,” he tunes into Jasper saying. “But have no fear, nothing a boeuf bourguignon cannot fix- and oh, Mac love, I forgot to check the market for peaches.”

“It’s okay, I called and they didn’t have any- are you sure I’m supposed to put this much sugar?”

“It’s a marshmallow creme, of course you are love.”

“I’m a pro at whisking dessert,” Mac informs Jack. “Jasper is making a pavlova.”

“A what?” 

“Pavlova, it’s really sweet, so you’d absolutely _ die _ for it.” 

Jack gives a toothy grin. “Well, you have a black thumb when it comes to cooking so we’ll have to see.”

“Oh, he’s gotten much better,” Jasper chips in. 

“Only when you’re there to watch, I still forget times and temperatures, and I just don’t get it really,” Mac says, as if Jack doesn’t know this, as if Jack hadn’t watched him burn countless chickens, or ruin several cakes, or attempt to make several homemade pizzas to no avail. 

They were strangers suddenly. 

But they were strangers when Mac said goodbye to him, because Jack had left. 

Jack had left, and he removed himself from Mac.

They were strangers a long time ago. Life has a funny way of coming back to the things Jack wanted to forget most.

And Suddenly, Jasper has given him purpose in his kitchen, and Jack is forced to interact, and pretend like he likes this guy, and that he’s okay. That everything is okay. He thinks in another life, he would have genuinely liked Jasper. He would have loved him, even, like his own kid. He would have moved them into this house, watched them adopt Ellie, he would have walked in and Jasper would have complained to him in the ear Mac wasn’t prattling on about his degree program. 

The night fades, and eventually the two go to bed, and Jack just needs to go, he doesn’t know if he can stand to hear the two talking all night, as if he’s a kid hearing his parents get ready for bed. He doesn’t know if he can stand that Jasper soothes all of Macs nightmares, and that Mac turns to Jaspers clothing for safety and comfort, or that he wakes up and makes them coffee, and kisses that man goodbye. Because he was just a boy, he was so young. He was too young to have a house, and a kid, and a husband. He was too young to be married. He was just so  _ young.  _

Jack hated the world where Angus Macgyver wasn’t his boy anymore, but a man he didn’t know very well. It was the wrong world to live in. 

\--

They sit at the kitchen table, far too early for anyone else to be up, and Mac looked so upset, and Jack had heard him crying, mostly because he couldn’t sleep. Jack had made them tea, they were mostly silent. He once again felt like he had no idea who the person in front of him was, the Mac he knew hardly ever shed a tear in spite of himself. He was healthier this way, in every way. 

“I could go… I know I sprung this on you suddenly.”

“I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything, Mac.”

“I do… because you’re here in my house, and I can’t pretend like none of it exists. Like I’m not… different, and that you look at me different-”

“You’re my kid-”

“I’m not a kid.”

“I know… I know you’re not a kid.”

“It just feels… like I’ve betrayed you somehow.”

“No… No hey, buddy, you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Why does it feel like I have? Like once you leave, that’s it?”

“It isn’t it. I’ll be here everytime you need me.”

“You hate him.”

“I don’t, he’s a great guy, Mac.”

Mac seems unconvinced and Jack gets up, to walk over to him and Mac looks up at him with his doe eyes. 

“I’m not gonna leave again… I’ll quite Phoenix and find an apartment around here, and get a job as a cop if that’s what you really wanted.”

“You don’t have to do that… no, you’d go crazy.”

“Listen here hoss, you’ve got a reckoning coming if you think I’m leaving you again.”

Mac nods, standing up and hugging Jack, and Jack just holds him, rubbing his back, letting Mac root himself back into his home, into Jack. (And it seems no matter how old Mac gets, he’s still his boy. He’d always be his boy.) 


	2. Reverse POV - Mac's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac's side of the story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it  
> Thank you to Rey for listening to me work out the finer details! and Gav for listening to all the ideas that I didn't tell Rey <3

It was late morning in Paris, as he stands by the window, looking over the city, and he isn’t so awed as he might have been any other day. There’s an empty look in his eyes, looking over the city blankly. He’s had a bad night, he doesn’t mean it, to have bad nights like that, even when he’s on vacation. 

Strong arms wrap around him, kissing the top of his head. 

“You okay?”

This was his dangerous secret of 2 years, not that he was bisexual, moreso that his boyfriend was a renowned agent, more renowned than he himself was, and dating any agent, let alone one that all the directors knew, was dirty business. Jasper Sheriff, at heart though, was the most endearing person Mac had ever met. He loved him, that much was true, and Jasper loved him back, that he knew intrinsically. What left him standing in murky waters was where their relationship was headed.

He hasn’t been the same since Jack left. Nothing’s been the same since Jack left, and the only true solace he had in his life was Jasper. For the simple fact that it felt he’d never leave. (Jack was never  _ supposed to leave _ ). 

“I’m okay,” he whispers, turning in Jasper’s arms, kissing him. “I’m okay…” he whispers, pushing down his inner turmoil.

“You sure?”

“Yeah… just, last op really took a toll on me.” 

“Okay…” he kisses his head. “okay.” 

\--

They were the only ones on the river, in a boat, in the cold, the world around them grey, and dull, and Mac let’s his fingertips trail into the cold water, Jasper pressing gentle kisses to his shoulder. He works his way up, and Mac turns and looks at him, the two meeting in a brief kiss. It’s not a fleeting feeling, and it sinks into him entirely, he could stay with Jasper forever. They talk about it sometimes, living together, finding new jobs, moving to a new country entirely. 

Escape would be such a sweet relief. 

He wouldn’t be trapped in his sorrows, left to look at the couches where Jack once was, or the porch to remember their game nights. He wouldn’t have to feel guilty, for never telling Jack about Jasper, about hiding Jasper. Or guilty that he wasn’t there, to save Jack if something happened to him. Jack wouldn’t come home and feel guilty if something ever happened to Mac. He wouldn’t go on ops and hate every second. 

He could be here, with Jasper, forever. Because he’s the only safe place in the world, Mac decides. He feels so entirely suffocated until he’s here. In his arms. 

This is a safe place for him. This is the only place for him, he’s sure of it.

“We should get married…”

“Not today.”

“No, not today. But we should get married.”

“Whenever your ready.”

“I’m serious, Jas.”

“So am I, Jones.”

They later got rings at a small boutique, in a corner in a small village within Paris. Mac’s ring was a beautiful gold with a silver star engraved. (Jasper did always say he had a certain star power, like Catherine Zeta Jones.) 

 

\- 3 months later, 9 months after Jack left -

 

“I got a job offer in New York. But I don’t think I’m going to take it.”

“Why not?” Mac steps into the war room and shuts the door, he doesn’t close out the windows. “Why won’t you take it?” 

“Because… well I don’t want to move all the way to the city without you. And I know you haven’t told anyone yet-”

“What was the job?”

“Temporary standing Director of a small domestic covert investigations office.”

“Jasper…” He rests the phone on his shoulder, fidgeting with the ring. He never takes it off, unless he’s on an op. 

“I just don’t think it’d work out… and it’d make being together harder.”

“It wouldn’t.”

“It would. You and I both know it.”

“It doesn’t have to. I’ll tell them, we’ll work it out.”

“So you tell them, I just think… well, you can’t leave. You said you didn’t want to leave, if Jack was coming back.”

It was an ulteriorly selfish motive to stay, that Jack could walk through the door. “I.. I can take a leave of absence.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be standing in place of the actual director for.”

“You  _ can’t  _ turn it down.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes.”  _ no.  _

“Mac.. you’re not going to be happy in New York, I can’t just rip you from your job, your home-”

“I’m making a voluntary choice… You can’t turn down the job.”

There’s silence for a long time. What a ten minute conversation should have been soon becomes an hour. An hour becomes two. 

Then three.

_ I feel like I’m ruining our relationship _

_ You’re not ruining anything- nothing is ruined, I don’t understand where- _

_ I’m holding you back, I should be supporting you. You should be excited to tell me, excited to go, and to go with me- _

_ I just don’t think it’s the right thing for us now. I’ll move to California. We can live in your house- _

_ What are you going to do? _

_ What? _

_ What are you going to do? _

_ I- I’ll figure it out as we go. We’ll figure it out as we go. _

_ No we won’t. _

_ I know what Jack meant to you and- _

_ I know what he meant to me too, and you know what? I had nothing to say to him when he left. How awful is that? How awful is it that I had nothing to say to him, and he just accepted it and walked out of my life! He- he just left! Okay? And he said he’d never leave, and I’m left here all alone, and what the hell am I supposed to do? I should’ve gone with him, I should be there with him, or he should be here with me and- _

Mac crumples onto the couch, sobbing into his knees, clinging to the phone, and he doesn’t know the knife that twisted into Jasper’s heart, that he can’t be there to hold him. 

“You’d hate it here! There’s nothing, there’s nothing for you to do, you’d be miserable. You’d  _ hate  _ it. You’d hate living in my house, you’d hate my friends, you’d hate LA because it’s nothing short of awful, faux charm and you’d be miserable! You’d be so miserable… I-  _ I’m  _ miserable.”

“Oh darling… we don’t have to stay in LA…”

This leads to another hour of conversation, of what New York would be like, of all the benefits of moving to New York, if they could make it in a small apartment with Jasper’s salary, and upon reading the papers, they find they could make it in a rather  _ nice  _ apartment with his salary, and then they find that there’s a door of opened opportunities for Mac, and master’s programs he could enter if he wanted. 

Hour five they agree that New York is a good place to start, they could have their wedding wherever it suited them. Just a small wedding, a simple wedding. Nothing insane or intense, just sign the papers, and then maybe a dinner for their friends and family. (What little family either really had.)

\--

The glass is an invisible shield, they watch Mac break and then recover and break again, even worse the second time, and then come to his senses just barely. He ends up leaning his head on his hand, on the phone, and they all wait nervously for him to hang up. If only he’d hang up. What was wrong? Who was he talking to? They couldn’t figure it out. 

He hangs up.

They walk in. 

“Who was on the phone?” Matty asks. She’s not there, if she was, Mac wouldn’t have even looked up before walking out. 

“Uhm… well that’s a long story.”

“Really?”

“I’ve been keeping something from all of you.”

“Oh?”

They all wait, pretending to be patient. Macs eyes are red, his cheeks bruisingly flushed and tear stained. The tip of his nose was a delicate rose pink, and he looked so much younger, like he was only a kid. 

“Mac, come on,” Riley encourages, sitting hesitatingly next to him.

“It’s gonna sound stupid.”

“It’s okay.”

“I… I’ve been seeing another agent for just over 2 years now, he’s a great guy. He really is. That’s why I was in Paris, it was our anniversary. We got engaged… and he called me to tell me that he got a job in New York City… He would start in 6 months, and so maybe we’d get married before then. Either way, I’m going with him. To New York City in six months.”

“Wait… what?” Matty asks.

“I know it’s a lot to take in.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Riley asks, Bozer quietly standing by. 

“I… i guess at first, I was afraid of how you’d react. Then it felt like the timing was off, then everything got so hectic, and Jack left… and I didn’t really know what to say by then. We were in Paris, and our conversations kept looping back to how  _ nice  _ it would be to live together, or to lead a life together, or maybe he’d commit to being a think tanker, full time. It wasn’t really… serious conversation, but it felt like it should’ve already happened- that we’ve been putting it off, mostly because I’d been putting off coming out to you guys.”

“Except for me, I knew, he had a fling with this guy in college- he was a  _ lit major _ -” Bozer starts and Mac laughs.

“Oh my god, we said we were never talking about Zach again!”

“You might have been in it for the sex but that guy was in it to marry you-”

“He was  _ not _ , I can’t believe we’re still arguing about this, it’s been 8 years!”

“He wrote poetry about you.”

“He was a lit major, it’s what they do.”

“You were all doe eyed at him for a while-”

“What’s his last name?” Matty asks. “Maybe we can see what he’s up to.”

“No,” Mac says, shaking his head. “Please no.”

“Was he ugly?” Riley asks Bozer.

“Ugly? I wish! If I wasn’t a straight man, I’d have done him myself,” Bozer admits and Mac is thoroughly blushing.

“Oh my god,” he whispers.

“Who’s your agent boyfriend then?” Matty asks, diverting the topic to Mac’s current situation and Mac perks up before slumping back into the couch.

“He wouldn’t want me to just hand his name out like that. And yes, that is exactly how he’d say it.”

His friends laugh, and he knows he should probably clarify later that he doesn’t hate his life here, or his friends, he just… felt trapped, and emotional. “He’s a hard ass kind of agent then?”

“Something like that…”

Here’s the thing: Jasper had become sort of a reckoning for Directors of any secret service operations team, FBI and CIA included, as he was offered a few jobs before they dated to interrogate deep cover agents, suspected traitors, and anything of the like. If Jasper Sheriff showed up to your door, looking for one of your agents, well, it was quite similar to seeing a harbinger of death.

Mac was looking to avoid this encounter until Jasper himself showed up, because really, Matty would run ten background reviews and then lock him in a holding cell. 

“What are you thinking about?” Matty asks.

“How much I don’t want you to lock my fiance in a holding cell.” 

She laughs. “Only if I have to Macgyver, now go home and freshen up.”

 

Its one month later that the team is on an op in Switzerland. Mac was Miserable and Jasper knew it. He could hear it in his voice on the phone, he could practically hear it oozing from his texts. So the only next logical and natural step is to go to Switzerland, because he can’t stand to think that his baby is there, and miserably accepting the bonding time with the woman who replaced Jack.

(Mac really talks about her so little he hardly remembers her name at all.)

So he takes the company plane there, and he waits in the lobby at the hotel. Waiting for Mac to return from his day of hiking, inevitably paired with the girl. 

\--

Matty nearly has a heart attack upon seeing Jasper Sheriff on the couch of the lobby, just reading a book, posture perfectly straight, face stoic. He was unsuspecting to the passerby but it rushes over her quickly that someone in her team has messed up very badly. She recognizes him easily from the few times she was involved in one of his interrogations. If she was scary, he was scarier. If she was the hun, he was the devil. 

He could take down anybody with a solid glare, he could see right through any client he looked at. She knew because she’s seen him do it. For someone so young, he was really, quite frankly, incredible.

“Agent Sheriff,” she greets, standing in front of him, putting on a smile. “Pleasant seeing you here…”

“Director Webber, fancy bumping into you,” he says, marking his place in his book and offering his hand to shake.

“Isn’t it? This is a great spot to vacation.”

“It is. I assume that’s what you’re here for,” Jasper says, and she thinks he must be able to see the fear in her eyes, he’s leading her on. No way that he showed up here, coincidentally, just to vacation. 

“Well, you must have just flown in.”

“Actually yes, I’m waiting for someone.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind if I ask who-”

“Jas?” she hears Mac asks, turning to look at him surprised, and Jasper stands up, and takes Mac into his arms, the two kissing (rather deeply at that). “What are you doing here? You haven’t been off in like 3 weeks, you should be home resting.”

“I am home,” he says softly, gently rubbing Mac’s side. “Wherever you are, that’s home to me babe.. I was just talking to Director Webber.”

“Were you?”

He nods, and Mac looks down at Matty apologetically. “He scared you into thinking someone was in trouble, didn’t he?”

“No, I never suspected that-” she squints at him. “Is that why you didn’t want to tell me?”

“Maybe,” he says, guilty of charge. Jasper laughs.

“You didn’t tell them who I was?” he asks, and Mac shrugs.

“You would’ve ended up in our holding cell, while she berated you into every detail of every minute you ever spent with me.”

“Well isn’t he lucky you’re here, so now I can do it over dinner?” 

“Very lucky, I’ve been meaning to ask you to dinner, actually,” Jasper says, and Matty takes a deep breath and nods.

“Really?”

“Really.” 

“Good, then the rest of the team should be here any minute now- Mac where’s our girl?”

“She ditched me because Riley was more fascinating.” 

\--

They’re getting settled at a restaurant table about 45 minutes later, Mac having showered and told Jasper all the details as he leaned against the frame of the bathroom door. They both had changed and Jasper had complained all the way down about his latest op, and the ‘idiot terrorists’ he’d concurred with, white domestic terrorists with no brains, he continues. 

And now they were being perfectly civil at dinner, no complaints or personal conversation, as Mac introduces Jasper and Matty still seems a bit nervous as they take their menus, Riley thanking the waiter first. They all follow. 

“I’ve been to Switzerland a few times, but this part of the Swiss Alps, I’ve never seen before. It’s really nice,” he says.

“Do you travel a lot in your free time?”

“As much as I can,” he admits, smiling a bit as Mac rests against him (slightly, in a way that’s hard to tell), so that his arm is leaning it’s wait against his. “Me and Mac were in Paris recently.”

“It’s where you got engaged right?”

“Right…”

Bozer is squinting at him, and Jasper offers a smile, glancing over Macs shoulder at the menu. “This wine sounds nice,” Mac says, before squinting. “I hate wine, this is your influence speaking.”

Jasper laughs, kissing his cheek. “I love wine. Though, I don’t think you’re going to get the wine.”

“I won’t but you will, and therefore I’ll steal a sip from you.”

“Only if you get that craft beer at the end of the list.”

“Where?”

“There.”

“Oh, that sounds really nice. Okay deal.”

The team is amused, their newest member is watching curiously, Mac hasn’t been very… open with her. They talk, but it’s filler. Just conversation to stop the silence. She doesn’t know much about him, other than he loved Jack… very much. 

Jasper turns his attention to Matty. “So, I actually was very interested in your spy school book, I had some changes I wanted to make though. You could give an updated curriculum.”

“Excuse me?”

Bozer, Riley and Mac watch with their jaws a bit dropped, the new recruit doesn’t feel the weight of it the way they do.  _ Nobody  _ said things like that to Matty.

“Okay, well, I have it just about memorized, so if you’d like, we can talk about it now.”

She laughs. “You have my book memorized?”

He looks at her like it’s obvious. “Uhm… yeah?” 

She laughs. “Right… Well, why don’t we schedule a date for another time before you whisk our boy off to the city?”

“I think I’d really like that actually.”

“Standing director, huh?”

“Yeah… I might need some tips.”

“I don’t think you’ll need any, actually.”

Jasper smiles, nudging Mac gently. The waiter comes back, and they all order drinks. Soon, Riley is bragging about Mac’s antics, and Jasper stops her. “Wait- why would you do that? There’s obviously a more-”

“Are you criticizing my reaction in a life or death situation?”

“ _ No _ ! I was just-”

“Unbelievable!”

“Okay I’m just saying there’s a faster way to-”

“I was *panicked*.”

“Right but just for next time-”

“I know exactly what you’re gonna say-”

“And it’s a better method!”

“I made it out alive didn’t I-?”

“Maybe, but next time if you don’t have enough time-”

“Okay sure because you’re the poster child of amazing field operations-”

“Okay, no-”

They were using the same tone on each other, but there was no real heat behind their argument. 

“Next time instead of how Mac would do it, how Jasper would do it.”

“The less productive way,” Mac concludes as the waiter puts down their drinks. Jasper resigns, and they almost instantly switch drinks; it’s second nature, as per usual for them. 

“I could just make you like an electric whip or something.”

“A what?” Bozer asks. 

“Electric whip.”

“You can make that?”

“Yeah, I’m actually pretty great at modifying weapons,” he says. “I do that a lot… for fun and all.” 

“Jack would’ve  _ loved  _ that,” he says without thinking, Riley elbowing him. “I mean-”

Mac feels a bit tense, he knows everyone is looking at him. “No, your right. Jack would have loved a tricked out gun.”

“And Jasper,” Riley adds softly, leaning into whisper it. He smiles.

“Yeah, and Jasper.”

\- 3 Years Later -

The dream morning was the one where Mac and Jasper could just wake up, holding each other, everything quiet and calm. They could get up, and make the coffee, and kiss against the counter. Nothing but them and the sun and the birds. 

Of course, it wasn’t like that at all.

Mac takes out his headphones, just returning from his run with their dog Cadmium, who almost manages to run away before Mac could take her collar off. He grabs her and scratches her face, laughing as she gives him kisses. He gets her collar off, kisses the top of her head. 

“Ellie, if you just eat 3 more bites, I promise you can go play in the yard!” Jasper yells from the kitchen.

“No!”

“Ellie, please!”

Mac walks in, grabs her before she can run away and sits her back in the seat. “Daddy!” 

“Morning Ellie, say  _ ah _ ,” he instructs, before pushing another spoon of oatmeal into her mouth, Jasper smiling and kissing him, putting a plate of eggs, hashbrowns and bacon down on the table for Mac. “And good morning husband, plus that’s two bites left.”

“Thank you, aren’t you an angel?” He kisses him again. 

“Ellie’s showered, I have to go get dressed.”

“Sure. You know the funniest thing,” Mac says, going to grab a fork. “I used to listen to this song after Nikki and I broke up-”

“Okay?”

“It’s been stuck in my head all morning! And for the life of me, I can’t remember the name-”

“Tell me more once I’m dressed.”

“I love you undressed all the time,” Mac teases, and Jasper kisses his shoulder and pinches his side as he runs upstairs, Cadmium barking and following him up the stairs. 

Mac smiles, humming what he remembers of the song. He sits down and starts on breakfast, Ellie climbing into his lap. 

“Outside?”

“After papa goes.”

She sighs, collapsing against him resigned. Ellie never fought with Mac, but she loved to fight with Jasper, in fact, his attitude encouraged it. It was probably healthy for both of them. 

Jasper returns downstairs, his bag slung over his shoulder, one of his binders in hands. “I hate that I have an organic chemistry lecture at 10 AM. Do I hate myself?”

“I hope not,” Mac says, offering him a bite, and Jasper takes it. 

“Today is our lab, so it’s going until 2, and then I have another class from 2.15-3.30, and then my last class is at 4.” 

“What are you doing in lab?”

“Total synthesis.” 

“What are you doing with it?”

“We talked about this last night in bed and you, halfway to sleep,you critiqued me.”

“I have no recollection. Tell me again.” Mac mostly just loved hearing his voice. 

“We’re going to start total synthesis, and then walk through a few compounds by creating crafts. Hence all the colorful paper I bought for myself, not for Ellie.” 

Mac awes. “You’re going to make them create compounds out of craft paper?”

“Colorful craft hexagons and the most god awful looking three go up on the board.” 

“Awful,” he says softly. “I have to take a test online today, for my masters program.”

“Are you really considering the interrogation job?”

“I think I am,” Mac says. “Beside’s it’s really fascinating. I think I’ve decided I like criminal psychology more than physics.”

“You’re only saying that because you hate that one professor you have for your PhD program.”

“That’s true. I missed school though,” he admits wistfully. “I forgot how great it was to just do research, and be in a lab all the time, and do rotations… it’s all so great.”

Jasper smiles, Mac standing with Ellie cradled in his arms. Jasper kisses him, and then little Elizabeth on the head. She smiles, still wide awake. (She was very quiet in the mornings, especially when Mac was holding her- she found a great deal of comfort in his arms.) 

Mac puts Ellie down, and goes to open the door, she gasps, and runs outside, tugging Cadmium to follow her, the two barrelling out the door into the spring morning. 

“I just can’t get that song out of my head- it was something about love is dead and it hits between the eyes? I just can’t stop thinking about it. Do you think that means something?”

“No, not exactly. I’m sure you’ll have a great day,” Jasper says, watching Mac stuff the remaining breakfast foods into a bagel. He shuts his binder, kissing Mac. “Also, I forgot to thank you for grading those homeworks last night- i could just get a teaching assistant for my Quantum physics course.”

“Why? I don’t mind doing it.”

“You’ve got a lot on your plate. When are you going to call the Secret Services director back?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow.”

“Do you really want to do it?”

“I think I just want to talk to them first. I have 3 months to decide.”

“You hated the field by the end.”

“I don’t know…” Mac says thinking. “Don’t you miss the field?”

“Only when I have a jolt of energy that requires a punch to the gut and a bullet through the chest. But usually a good work out fixes that.”

“It’d be time consuming…”

“It would be.”

“It could be Matty trying to lean me back in.”

“Maybe…”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t back out so soon, if you want to do it, I think it’d be a great opportunity if you wanted to take it.”

Mac nods, handing Jasper his coffee thermos and kissing him. “Go before you’re late.”

“Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Noted, thank you oh wise one.”

“I’m your obi wan, I can’t help it.”

Mac smiles, kissing him deeply before leaning against the counter, listening to Ellie play in the backyard. Jasper goes, and Mac sighs. He cleans up the kitchen, wipes down the counter, and the name of the song finally comes back to him. Ellie comes inside, and he sets her up to play in the living room while he takes his test online. Her toys are strewn across the floor, when she finally climbs up on the couch.

He had  _ Romance  _ playing over and over again, figuring he’d get sick of it eventually and then forget about it for a few years again. 

“Nap time, daddy?” 

“Sure, you woke up early today,” he notes and she nods, letting Mac turn on the TV for her. “Would you like to watch Lilo and Stitch?”

She nods, letting Mac wrap her up in blankets, and lay her little body down before turning on her favorite movies. 

\--

Ellie is long asleep when the doorbell rings, and Mac looks up from his laptop, putting it aside. 

“Coffee sounds good now, doesn’t it Cadmium?” he says at the dog sitting by the kitchen entryway on the other side of the room. 

He was reading further into a case for one of his classes, but it could wait. Cadmium gets very excited at the prospect of someone being at the door, running over to Mac and urging him up with her nose, whining and barking, her white hair shimmying as they walk over the door and she jumps up, Mac laughing.

“Calm down girl, you don’t want to scare our guests,” he says. He was sure it was Mrs. Miller from next door, giving him any leftover desserts from another one of her obscenely large baking sessions. She did always hate Cadmium, but he thinks she’s more scared of the chihuahua across the street, so they’ve never taken it to heart. “Who’s at the door?” he asks, holding her down as he opens the door, her tongue sticking out excitedly in anticipation. He looks up, ready to greet his neighbor when he sees him.

Mac’s heart is thundering, so loud that it’s silent. He feels like his whole body stops. 

“Jack..?” 

“It’s me buddy…” 

“What are you doing here?” he couldn’t even  _ believe  _ it. Was he dreaming? Was Jack there, genuinely there? He could wake up any minute, on the couch with his doc open, and the sun setting. 

“I… finished my op, and funny story, I went back to Phoenix and you weren’t there.”

_ Oh.  _ Mac feels guilt coil in his stomach, his fingers uncurling from Cadmium’s collar, standing up straight. He doesn’t know what to say, what to do here. He should’ve stayed, he knew he should’ve stayed- waited for Jack. ( _ but wasn’t life so good now, Macgyver? What would Jasper say, to all your doubts? He’s done so much for you…  _ Oh were the voices in his head right.)

“Do you want to come inside?”

Jack starts to make an excuses but Mac feels himself shaking his head violently, he stops himself from propelling his body forward to grab Jack and pull him inside. “No! No… I’m not. I was just making coffee.”

He watches Jack take a deep breath, like he’s bracing himself. Did he know everything, did Matty tell him? He couldn’t bare to ask, he should tell Jack himself. God he wants to puke all over the floor. He thought about Jack all the time, he’d dreamt of this moment over and over again. But he never was prepared for this. 

He’s suddenly very conscious of the toys on the floor and picks them up as he leads them through the living room to the kitchen. “I really wasn’t expecting anyone sorry... Uhm… I-uhm- well, I should probably tell you everything first.”

“You have a kid.”

Oh, god, he wish he hadn’t said it. It hurts to hear Jack say it, it would hurt even more if he looked him in the eye after he said it, so he doesn’t. He glances at him and smiles. “Elizabeth, Ellie for short. You’d like her. She’s uh… she’s creative for a three year old.”

“She’s three?”

Mac nods, and he brings Jack into the kitchen, busying himself with making a fresh, hot pot of coffee. It felt good to have something to do all of a sudden, he wasn’t really processing all of this.  _ Is this real? Is he real?  _

They talk about Ellie until the coffee brews. Then they grow quiet. Mac pours the coffee and he can’t contain it, he hates hiding from Jack, and he’s hiding in plain site. If Jack were only to look to his left, he’d see a wall of pictures of him and Jasper: their wedding day, pictures of them in New York, pictures of them with friends. And what happens when Jack asks about a spouse? It’d kill him to have to come out in what might feel like, to Jack anyways, a forced situation. 

“I’m Bisexual.”

He blurts it out and he knows it. Jack seems a bit shocked at how forward he is but Mac knows if he takes it back, well nothing would go well from there. He softens quickly.

“And that’s okay. You must be married.”

Mac feels relieved.  _ Oh thank god.  _ He feels like he can finally breathe.

\--

Jack is asleep in the guest room, and Mac can’t help but peak in, and watch his friend sleep on the bed. He had missed Jack, such a large part of him wants to just toss himself onto the bed and hold him, to reminisce in what it felt like to be a kid again. To be 22 and safely tucked away in Jack’s bed, the blankets thickly coated in something so Jack that it was instantly safe. Like Jack himself was hugging him tight. 

Mac knows better though, things weren’t like that anymore. At least it didn’t feel like they did. He takes a deep breath and goes back downstairs. Jasper would be home soon. It’d be okay then. 

\--

Jasper steps through the door, and Mac is there almost quicker than Elizabeth is there, Mac falling into a deep kiss. He feels like he’s cried a million times today, he doesn’t want to cry again, but he might cry in the relief that is Jasper being there. 

“Jack’s here. Upstairs. And everything feels so different,” he whispers. “It’s like he’s not really here, I’m not even sure if he is, there’s a chance I’ve gone crazy or something.”

“Elizabeth, do we have a guest?”

“Yes, Uncle Jack.”

“Mac, my love, you’re perfectly sane.”

Mac laughs, hugging Jasper loosely. “Thank god for that.”

They start making their way upstairs, Elizabeth becoming more interested in what Cadmium was doing. “So how are you taking it?” he teases.

“I don’t know… I haven’t processed that he’s here it,” Mac rephrases. 

“It’s okay, you know?”

“No it’s not okay..” he whispers, only for Jasper to hear. Jasper gives him a look, the two reaching the top of the stairs, just outside Jack’s room. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel okay, and I keep thinking I ruined everything… I don’t know what to say-”

“It’s okay Jones,” Jasper says, taking his face in his hands. “You’ll work it out nothing is instant.” 

“But it should be instant. We should be instant. He’s my best friend. he- he  _ was  _ my best friend.” 

“He still is.”

“Is he?”

“Of course he is.”

Mac nods. “You’re right… of course he is.” he almost seems to be mocking, and Jasper rolls his eyes, the two at the end of the hall where their master bedroom was, kissing him gently before opening the door to their room. 

\--

“What’s for dinner?”

“Boeuf Bourguignon,” Mac says. “Your boeuf bourguignon fixes everything.” 

Jasper smiles, and kisses his nose. “Sure.”

\--

It’s a long night, and Mac doesn’t feel like he can sleep. His anxiety eats him inside and out. He ruined everything. He ruined his relationship with Jack, he left when he should have stayed. He promised he would stay. Why didn’t he? Why had he been so selfish? 

He crawls out of bed, giving Jasper his pillow to hug instead, and then goes downstairs. Jack follows soon after, to find him crying on the counter. 

_ Listen here hoss. You’ve got a reckoning coming if you think I’m ever leaving you again.  _

When Mac pulls away, he looks Jack in the eyes. “I’m sorry I left.”

“It’s okay, you left for the right reasons. Look at all the good stuff you have.”

“Jack, I love you.”

“I… I love you too.”

“I know we promised we wouldn’t say it, but I mean it.”

“I mean it too. Besides, not saying I love you? That’s stupid and overrated.”

“Yeah… it is. Us being weird, also stupid and overrated.”

“So we’re good?”

“Golden, Dalton.” 


End file.
